HELP BUT NOTICE THE BANDWAGON, FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND TRINI RESPONSE TO THE JAMAICAN’S RAMPAGING PERFORMANCE AT THE BET AWARDS. I HAD TO CRINGE WITH ALL THE HOLLOW SCREAMS OF, “IS WE TRINIS NEXT YEAR!” THIS IS ONCE AGAIN DISHONEST- JAMAICANS DESERVE IT AS A COMMUNITY. WE DO NOT. FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:

Jamaicans have been charting internationally since the 1960s and hardly a year has passed without Jamaican artists charting in the Top 100. They have been consistent performers on the international and Billboard charts and have worked hard at finding the numerous musical routes and industry relationships to get there.

They have generations of music savvy and industry know-how data available to them. Where is any such comparable info located here?

Every single song on that stage was a Billboard charting song.

Every single song on that stage is an anthem on the dance-floors across the world- and instantly recognisable from Japan, to Sweden, to South Africa, to Brazil, to Manhattan

Also bear in mind that their performance of 6 songs and 4 sets of acts took only 4 minutes- yet had all that impact! This was because each artist, performance, song slice, and shout out was a choreographed bomb.

It was a showcase of numerous Jamaican brands, and icons: their flag; the ice/green/ and gold rasta colours; the backyard dancehall aesthetic with the speaker-boxes etc; their dances; their fashion; the Jamaican style of mixing/ sound effects, etc; the name Jamaica itself…

This was part of their 50Th Independence Anniversary plan! Anybody care to revisit and recite our plan?

This is just the latest manifestation of 50 years of Jamaican cumulative hard work in breaking, building on, and sustaining their brand in the world’s consciousness. Dawn Penn who opened the salvo that night with ‘No No No’ first hit with that song in the 1960s and re-did it again in the 80s keeping it current, and is here again in 2013 planting the flag of that anthem once again!

Reggae is recognised as a category by Billboard and the Grammys. The reggae shelves in most large metropolitan music stores have been growing over the last 15 years- whilst rock shelves shrunk. T&T music is nowhere to be found…

Their music sells tens of millions of units annually. Their artists are on stages everywhere on planet earth on everyday of the year- performing to millions. We are not.

Every single song had an emotional and visceral response to many people in the audience…

DO WE DESERVE ANYTHING COMPARABLE GIVEN ALL OF THIS? NO WE DO NOT!

Trinidadians want to reap the reward without the hard work and without learning from their mistakes. If we want the same time in the limelight we must do the following:

WE MUST FIGHT FOR THE CULTURAL INTERVENTIONS WHICH WE KNOW WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE, INSTEAD OF SITTING ON OUR BUTTS AND COMPLAININg

We must build systems and stop super-rewarding individuals- let the systems and marketplace select its stars

We must get artists out to international expos based on merit so that we can start building relationships with industry middle-men: managers; booking agents; tour agents; small and medium sized labels; etc

We must increase our touring contingent from .05% to 35% and get more artists in the world’s face thus building a buzz around a continuous stream of constantly replenishing T&T product

We must have 50% local content so that we can start listening to more of our local music and seeing more of our images so that we can start confidently exporting the best of our large gene pool, we cannot select from what we do not know we have, and if we are not listening to ourselves en mass then who else will?

We must start building an institutional memory for our sector and insist that all young musicians matriculate in it and apprentice to our best Elders and our national Songbook- FOR THIS WE NEED TO CANONISE ELDERS AND ESTABLISH A NATIONAL SONGBOOK!!!

We must start being honest about quality- what is genius, excellent, what is very good, what is good, what is mediocre, what is good but has flaws, what is crap, and what deserves to be destroyed upon conception… Only by artistic honesty will we advance

Now the thing is WE CAN ACTUALLY HAVE A T&T SHOWCASE NEXT YEAR ON BET- BUT IT ENT GO LOOK ANYTHING LIKE WHAT WE NAIEVELY THINK IT SHOULD. IT WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS:

The artist will be: Nicki Minaj; Heather Headley; Trinidad James; Theophilus London; Foxy Brown; Chip Fu of the Fuschnickens; Anslem Douglas; Haddaway; Billy Ocean; and we should leverage for Sparrow to be in there as Calypso King of the World and he should sing an instant folk classic like ‘Lying Excuses’- and feature a dread pan solo by Boogsie or Sean Thomas… Nia Long, Alphosno ‘Carlton’ Rebeiro, and Tatiana Ali could show up and blow kisses

But that’s what the line-up will look like, our Billboard charters do not have worldwide anthems- KMC, General Grant, Kalayan, etc so it would not make sense showcasing them yet. A Machel one-man show would teach us nothing and may be industrially dishonest because we will feel ‘we in ting’ when we are not… If KMC’s label pushes for his album release close to that time then he may be the dark-horse new release in the mix…

But- we could use the buzz generated by the fact that nobody in the world had a clue that all those hit-makers came from Trinidad and Tobago to position the next tier of our talent who are ready to take the stage- Machel, joint pop, Ataklan, Kes, John John, A_phake, Irukandji, and a steady stream of the best Groovy Soca singles in more or less mainstream music markets- meanwhile we should be prepping others like David Rudder, Blackmans, the Shadow, Robert Munroe, the top 5 Pan orchestras, etc for the World Beat circuits…

But this is the truth of what is possible. We need to get very real and stop fooling ourselves… We have work to do. Jamaican success is not by fluke, its not by sudden magical individual skill- it is because of systematic, habitual hard work, following international industrial Best Practice, by apprenticing Elders to young talent throughout the system. The guy who trained Bob Marley and the Wailers to sing is still coaching Jamaican vocalists; the same session musicians are playing on tracks 30 years later… They have never burnt their bridges and have been constantly building on industry contacts and sharing them across their spectrum. They have been constantly attending the expos and maintaining relationships and building new ones. Booking agents have been booking Jamaican acts consistently since the 1960s, When we went on tour in 2003 most agents had not seen Trini acts since Sparrow in the 1960s…

It is not because we lack talent- we lack systems and a clue. If we want BET, and Grammy stages, far less Grammy awards, gold medals, world records etc WE NEED TO GET REAL!!!

I feel like you just provided a thorough medical examination of our popular music industry. We came up far short BUT you provide, in para 14, a clear path forward. You touch some really deep, important success factors in your piece, I think each deserves a chapter in a book/course crying out to be written. “We feel we in ting…”. I think every participant in our music industry is enriched by the wisdom of your piece. All need to carry it with them on their smart phones read and re-read until they get it!!! I believe our industry lacks structure, no one knows who is the coach and who is the water boy so we flounder. You give hope, let’s build that vision NOW!!!!

Well done Rubadiri, its frightening but it is so honest and to the point that many of us refuse to acknowledge, that the same way that it takes a village to raise a child ,it will take a nation to develop its Culture, before any one else will give it the recognition they so long to see.

“…dancehall appears to be creeping back into mainstream consciousness, via Yeezus, “Freaks” and various other sources. It is interesting to note…that this interest does not appear to extend to “current” dancehall. None of the tunes performed (“No No No,” “Murder She Wrote,” “Who Am I” and “Pon De River, Pon De Bank”) were newer than 2002 (though Beenie did manage to get a quick “Rum and Redbull” chant in).”

This observation speaks to the longevity of the music and adds fuel to the fire that Rubadiri Victor is igniting that our legacy music is still a showcase item for wider mass consumption.

Collectively and holistically, our music will have impact, not in the simplistic notions of a Minister of Planning, Sen. Dr. Bhoendradatt Tewarie at the lead up to our 50th Anniversary of Independence that,

“I think we need to focus on value for money almost item by item…I think Machel is in a class by himself and he really has no competitors in his class and my own feeling is that we should try to support an external thrust led by Machel in the world outside and with other people hanging on to his coattails in a range of products.”

This statement was made prior to the formal funding—in the region of $5M—of the failed “Going For Gold” CD/DVD project (due August 2012, delivered November 2012) that was to provide international exposure and an investment fund for the local music industry by it wide distribution and profits. The exposure was in the 200 seat Tricycle Theatre in London. The profits are yet to come. “Going to Gold” has gone to dust. It’s resurrection in the modern music industry is improbable.http://www.largeup.com/2013/07/01/beenie-ele-more-bring-dancehall-to-the-bet-awards/